The Dutch company said it had a problem with its “global positioning system firmware which was causing a limited number of models to fail to identify their location”.
People who are affected by the problem see a grey screen on their TomTom and a message saying the device does not have a GPS signal.
The problem first arose on March 31 and the company said that it is working to resolve the issue with a system update. A spokesman said: “Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused."
TomTom has advised those customers affected, across the UK, Australia, Switzerland and Denmark, to reset their devices.
One owner of TomTom’s Go Live 1005 model told the BBC that he had encountered the problem on Sunday during a trip from Gatwick Airport to Cornwall.
"It refused to shift its position from Gatwick and kept showing a message saying 'looking for valid GPS signals,'" Graham Pitt said.
"I assumed it had broken but when I went to check TomTom's website I saw there were similar complaints about a range of models on its discussion boards. I feel this should have been made public earlier to alert customers to the problem."
